Zelenskyy urges Trump to take ‘clear position’ on Russia sanctions

President Donald Trump said Tuesday that his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts “hate each other” and he’s stuck in the middle.

Trump’s efforts to broker peace between the warring eastern European neighbors have fizzled out since his August summit in Alaska with President Vladimir Putin and meeting the following day with Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy and several other European leaders.

Rebuffing U.S. diplomacy Putin has intensified his attacks on Ukraine since then while sticking to his maximalist demands to end the war.

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, is running out of patience, and called on Monday, for the American president to take a “clear position” on Russia.

Trump has stopped short of imposing his promised punishment on the Kremlin, and Ukraine’s allies have so far not outlined a defined set of security guarantees they could offer Kyiv to help bring an end to the war.

But in an apparent show of frustration about his role as mediator in the three-and-a-half-year war, Trump said Tuesday that it looked like he would “have to sit in the room with them, because they can’t sit in a room together.”

Speaking to reporters on the White House lawn, he demanded that Europe “stop buying oil from Russia” and said Zelenskyy is going to “have to make a deal.”

His comments came after Zelenskyy told NBC News’ British partner Sky News, that Trump had “enough force to make Putin afraid of him.”

Europe has “already introduced 18 sanctions packages” against Russia,” said Zelenskyy. “All that’s lacking now is a strong sanctions package from the U.S.,” he added. “More needs to be done, quicker.”

On security guarantees, Zelenskyy said he really wanted to have all the agreements in place and a “document that is supported by the U.S. and all European partners.”

“To make this happen, we need a clear position of President Trump,” he added.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said Tuesday that Trump and Zelenskyy will “probably” meet next week in New York during the United Nations General Assembly.

Trump is trying “everything possible” to bring the war to an end, Rubio said during a trip to the Middle East.

Trump has frequently chided the two leaders for refusing to bargain and Russia has thrown cold water on his attempts to organize a summit between Putin and Zelenskyy.

Zelenskyy said Putin was “trying to find a way out of isolation” through diplomacy with Trump, adding the meeting in Alaska “gave a lot to Putin.”

“I believe, if it was a trilateral meeting, we would have some result,” he said.

Days after his meeting with Putin, Trump promised during a meeting with European leaders in Washington that the U.S. would provide security guarantees as part of any settlement with Russia, a red-line issue for Kyiv.

Russia said such talks were a “road to nowhere” without its involvement.